


This heart is afraid to beat slowly

by pinkpurpleblue



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Eleven | Jane Hopper Needs A Hug, Eleven's time in the lab isn't really explored except like a lil bit in s1 so like here I guess, Isolation, Martin Brenner Being an Asshole, Whumptober 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-07
Updated: 2019-10-07
Packaged: 2020-11-27 02:35:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20940878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinkpurpleblue/pseuds/pinkpurpleblue
Summary: Eleven hates the cold room.





	This heart is afraid to beat slowly

  
Eleven hates the cold room.  
  
"Hate" is a new word she learned a couple of days ago when one of the men walked by, one of the important official ones, not a scientist or a doctor; because she knows the difference now, and she knows they're important. The man had walked by with a doctor at his side and talked about his wife, called her a lot of words that Eleven doesn't understand; but he ends it saying that he hates her and his son.  
  
She thinks about it a lot, she has a lot of time to think about things, and not enough words to think about things with. It's difficult.  
It takes her a while to really figure out what _Hate_ means. It's a sad word, and an angry word, but never a happy word. Eleven finally figures that it must the opposite of like because that's the happiest word she knows. She likes things and there has to be a word for things she doesn't like and now she has it. It's new and exciting to be able to label all sorts of things under new words.   
  
She assigns it to a lot of things, she sorts and sorts until she finds she has a lot of things she hates; now that she knows what she's feeling.   
  
The cold room is one of them. She knows it's not called the cold room, but the walls and floor are cold to touch and they chill the air around them. She doesn't know why she gets put in there sometimes; she has a lot of time to think about it though, and more than enough silence for her to fill. The cold room has nothing in it, not like her own room; which she decorated with drawings. And the cold room pretends to have space, unlike the tank.  
  
Eleven likes to puts her hands over her eyes and spy on the guards and the scientists and the doctors. She's a spy, and her powers are very _important_. She knows that word because Papa says it a lot. He says it about suited men and her powers and himself and what they do, which she still doesn't know.   
  
He never says _Important_ about her specifically, but it's a known word, so she sorts everything into important and not important. Her Papa isn't on her important list but he'll never know because her thoughts stay only in her head and he won't ever be able to know them. She laughs about that sometimes.  
  
She wants to put him on the list of things she hates, but she doesn't want to. She doesn't know the word for it, but she gets a feeling that sinks into her stomach and makes her head all dizzy when she thinks of putting him on that list, even in her head.  
  
So she stays safe and puts the cold room on the _Hate_ list instead, and goes back to covering her eyes and spying. She finds a woman, one of the doctors, and follows her. The woman likes to hum as she walks, and it's nice. Eleven can feel like blood begins to slowly run from her nose, but she ignores it. After a while, the woman begins singing under her breath, and Eleven thinks that her singing is _pretty_. And Eleven hopes that one day she can be _pretty_; because _pretty_ is a happy word.


End file.
